Because it shows two of the most vile, reprehensible propagandists in the world.

Susan Rice and Barack Obama.

But it lets them speak.

The film lets Rice and Obama make fools of themselves.

[and it doesn’t take these two idiots long]

Then we are immersed in a richness of inquiry which befits the home country of our director.

Spain.

But Álvaro Longoria’s film is about a wholly different place.

North Korea.

I was lucky enough once to visit Mr. Longoria’s hometown of Santander.

Though I was not there long, I found it odd that we (me and my traveling companions) boarded our plane on the runway.

A Boeing 737, I believe it was.

So we are talking about perhaps 200 people.

On a runway in Spain.

With a little control tower.

I must admit.

The operation was not heartening.

But then again, I’ve taken a propeller plane from Sacramento to San Francisco.

The world likes to think of America as filthy rich.

But we still have propeller planes for some of our shorter routes.

Flying over San Francisco Bay in a propeller plane wasn’t exactly my idea of relaxation either.

But so then…what do we think of North Korea?

If we listen to people like Susan Rice and Barack Obama (neither of whom, categorically, can be trusted), then we are to shudder at the thought of the DPRK.

Well, our director Mr. Longoria has given the most fair, measured approach to a very controversial subject.

And his final product (the film) is so much the better for it.

To wit, Mr. Longoria does not presume to think for his viewers.

He lets you decide.

If you are looking for bias in this film, you will have to look pretty hard.

Perhaps, you will reason, Mr. Longoria is a Spanish leftist and therefore he gives North Korea the benefit of the doubt.

On the contrary, one might reason that the director is a very (VERY) savvy propagandist himself…and therefore, his documentary is largely an exercise in reverse psychology.

I must admit.

When I heard the voices of Rice and Obama, my internal monologue of opprobrium almost caused me to lose my lunch.

But I stuck with it.

And I’m so glad I did.

What is at issue in this film, and in the frozen conflict zone of which North Korea is half, is the discipline/technique/art of propaganda.

If you are very dumb (and I doubt you are, as you are reading this illustrious blog), you will believe everything you hear about North Korea.

You will believe CNN.

You will believe Martha Raddatz.

You will believe George Stephanopoulos.

To call these two “presstitutes” is really being too kind.

They make Rice and Obama look like saints.

Those of the Raddatz/Stephanopoulos ilk in the United States journalistic community are really worthless individuals.

Mostly because they have ceased to BE individuals.

They aren’t even drones.

They are more like little Lego pieces of poisonous honeycomb.

Inhuman.

But they’re not alone.

Throw in Diane Sawyer.

Actually (and I’ll throw the lefties a bone), throw in Bill O’Reilly.

All of these journalists are generally less than nothing when it comes to their global contributions.

And so it only makes the case of the DPRK stronger (for better or worse) when such née-individuals (including emasculated presstitutes) insult North Korea.

And so it is very clear that North Korea is the target of an immense amount of propaganda.

HOWEVER,

the DPRK seems itself to be quite prodigious in the art of manipulative communication.

Or, propaganda.

So our director lets the two sides go at it.

It’s almost like two Charlie Brown schoolteachers (Othmars both) having a verbal altercation.

The West: “Blah blah blah blah HUMAN RIGHTS blah!”

North Korea: “Blah blah blah blah IMPERIALISTS blah.”

We must credit North Korea with restraint.

The people.

Polite.

Keep in mind, this is a focus on the people.

What kind of people live in North Korea?

[well, Koreans…obviously]

Adults, children…male, female…

And so the cynic will cry “Potemkin village” very early on in this one.

But it is worth watching till the end.

Most intriguing is the figure Alejandro Cao de Benós de Les y Pérez.

Here’s an idealist if ever there was one.

But that’s what we must remember about North Korea.

It is a country of extreme idealism.

Let me frame it with slightly different diction.

It is a country of immense idealism.

[ah…we even got some alliteration there!]

Mr. Cao is, or was, Spanish.

Now he is a North Korean.

He is a spokesman for the DPRK.

As we say here in the West, he’s “all in”.

He digs their chili.

He’s drinking the Kool-Aid.

We want some of whatever he’s smoking.

[you get the picture]

But I must say…

Mr. Cao is an extremely (immensely) articulate individual.

To hear him tell it (and he does so with genuine conviction), North Korea is the last bastion of communism.

China has sold out to market forces (capitalism).

The Soviet Union sold out Stalin (Cao actually makes this claim).

[and, he asserts, China sold out Mao]

Vietnam is now thoroughly capitalist.

[that might be a direct quote]

So does Mr. Cao have a point?

Well, perhaps he does.

But there are doubtless few self-respecting communists [more to this sentence after brackets] who would hold up North Korea as a beacon of socialist governance.

Communist, socialist, Trotskyist…

It all begins to run together for us heathen imperialists.

Ah!

There’s that other buzz word.

Imperialism.

Indeed, if you look at the U.S. military bases in South Korea and Japan (which this documentary illustrates as a sort of “ring of fire” [pun intended]), the imperialism charge is not without evidence.

But this is really the quintessence of what Nick Tosches calls “intellectual parlor games”.

Meaning, we could be here all day.

I’m at nearly a thousand words (and so are you, if you’re still with me) and I haven’t even begun to truly scratch the surface of the imbroglio that is the 38th parallel.

North latitude.

Simply put, the U.S. has a vested interest in creating and propagating propaganda about North Korea.

[which does not mean that all of the reportage is made-up…indeed, the best propaganda has a kernel or modicum of truth…sometimes even a heaping spoonful…North Korea certainly does not seem to have the whole “public relations” thing down yet]

And conversely, North Korea has a vested interest in creating and propagating (mostly for internal, domestic purposes) propaganda about the United States and capitalist economies in general.

[and granted…the United States has done some incredibly daft stuff…the likes of which could be spun into a thousand tales of horror for 10,000 years]

What really complicates matters are nuclear weapons.

North Korea, we are told, has twenty (OH MY GOD! 20!!!) nuclear weapons.

The United States has sixty-eight-hundred (6,800) nuclear warheads in various states of readiness.

I hate to sound like Ted Turner (and it’s sad when Mr. Turner becomes a voice of reason), but there seems to be a rather glaring discrepancy there.

Oh!

But one side is responsible (I’ll let you guess) and the other side is reckless (guess again).

Of course, nuclear weapons have never been used in war…except by the United States.

Twice.

And so every society has its propaganda.

I will never feel very good that my country nuked two Japanese cities.

Somewhere between approx. 125,000 and 250,000 Japanese people (at least half of them civilians) were vaporized and/or bombarded with lethal radiation by Fat Man and Little Boy.

I know that the U.S. Department of Defense (then known as the Department of War and Department of the Navy, respectively) isn’t selling Girl Scout cookies.

But Harry S. Truman’s “display” on live targets is a rather hard pill to swallow.

We are supposed to think statistically.

Think of how many lives we saved (by, counterintuitively, squelching perhaps a quarter million OTHER souls).

I guess maybe after six years of war, we were insane.

They say it only takes 100 days.

Of warfare.

Any man (or woman).

No matter how mentally strong.

Literally insane.

Beyond that point.

But we were talking about North Korea…

Mr. Longoria is more of a scientist than me.

Our director, Mr. Longoria.

He meditates on the problem.

He is not rash.

Granted, his access to the “hermit kingdom” compels him to be open-minded (if only for the duration of his stay [and in strictly “apparent” diplomacy]).

It seems evident to me that Álvaro Longoria is a very formidable filmmaker.

Something draws me to Eastern Europe. I blame Romania. Thank you Romania! Yes, there was something about the ambiance which director Cristian Mungiu conjured up in 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile) which has stayed with me for a long time.

Really, it’s a rather mundane part. Near the top of the film. The goddess Anamaria Marinca traipses down the hall to find some soap…and cigarettes. The scene is a college dormitory in communist Romania (pre-December 1989). Girls in one room chat about beauty products. There seems to be a good bit of bartering going on. Marinca is mainly uninterested. Looking for a certain kind of soap (if I remember correctly). On the way back to her room she stops off at the room of a foreign student (non-Romanian) who sells cigarettes and gum and stuff. The whole film she is searching for Kent cigarettes (a few mentions of this brand). Not surprisingly, there are no Kents to be had in the dorm. She settles for something else. Perhaps. I don’t know.

She stops and admires some kittens which someone has taken in.

It is astonishingly real. On par with Roberto Rossellini.

Indeed, it might be said that all New Waves (from the nouvelle vague to the Romanian New Wave) have their birth in the neorealist films of Rossellini.

But Mungiu added a new wrinkle.

Marinca. [The goddess of whom I spoke.]

Marinca is unglamorous. No one is glamorous in 4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile. We get the impression that it is the waning days of Ceaușescu’s reign.

Times are tough. The policies of the state haven’t worked out so well. It bears some resemblance to a prison. Material items take the place of money (reminiscent of cigarettes as currency in jails).

What I have yet to define in this article is “goddess”. What do I mean by that?

Well, I’m glad you asked! Marinca (particularly in this film) is a goddess to me because she represents the opposite of the typical American woman in the year 2015. Her beauty is her soul. Her beauty is her loyalty to her roommate and friend Găbița. Her beauty is her dedication to acting. She is completely immersed in her unglamorous role…and it is eye-watering.

I have mentioned a similar impression (which further solidified my admiration for Romanian films) I got from watching Dorotheea Petre in The Way I Spent the End of the World (Cum mi-am petrecut sfârşitul lumii). This masterpiece by director Cătălin Mitulescu preceded Mungiu’s Palme d’Or-winning film by about a year (2006). I was again struck by another goddess of film (Petre) who, with the help of her auteur, created a character also in direct opposition to the meretricious, vacuous ideal of American womanhood in the 21st century.

And so it is that we finally come to the film under consideration: Душан Макавејев‘s Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator. Dušan Makavejev is Serbian. Out of deference to his country I have listed his name in Cyrillic script. Likewise, the title of the film (at the top) is in Serbo-Croatian. It is a grey area about which I am not completely informed. Suffice it to say that Croatia seems to generally use Roman letters (as opposed to the Serbian usage of Cyrillic). It is a bit like the distinction (and writing differences) between Urdu and Hindi [which I have heard described as essentially the same language, but with two different writing systems].

I prefaced this article on Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. with my own backstory concerning Eastern European cinema because it is relevant to my approach going forward.

Before coming to this, my first Yugoslav (1967) film, I opened up the can of worms which is Czech cinema by reviewing Closely Watched Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky). Jiří Menzel’s sexually-charged film poem from the previous year (1966) was a major revelation for me. And so it is that Dušan Makavejev’s bittersweet confection shares more than just a communist framing with Menzel’s aforementioned erotic portrait.

Yes, Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. is about our old film-school standbys: sex and death. I can never combine those two words (in the context of film) without remembering the ridiculously funny scene of Jim Morrison at UCLA screening his student film in Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991).

The fictional Morrison, then, would be trying to hop on a nonfictional bandwagon represented by the likes of Menzel and Makavejev. Morrison’s time at UCLA (1964-1965) not only coincided with the staggered births of “new waves” around the world (particularly in Europe), but also occurred while Morrison’s father (US Navy Rear Admiral [RADM] George Stephen Morrison) was the commanding officer of a carrier division involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Jim Morrison lived fast. Entered UCLA in 1964. Graduated with an undergraduate degree in film in 1965. Was dead by 1971. But those years in between… It’s no wonder Jim had an Oedipal complex (evident in the song “The End” [1966/1967]) when considering his father was involved in false-flagging the U.S. into a suicidal war against communism. What a disgrace…

No, the real hero in the family was not RADM Morrison, but rather Jim. He turned on the dream-switches of so many kids. To put it quite bluntly, he was part of the counterculture in America which caused kids to start giving a fuck about the world and politics and geopolitics and confirmed charades (frauds, shams, etc.) like the Gulf of Tonkin “incident”. Such a sanitary and slippery word: incident.

It fits perfectly, in that there was no incident.

But while Morrison the Younger had gone off into Brechtian pop-rock, Serbian director Makavejev was busy making Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator. It is equally stunning, for its medium, as “The End”.

Sex needs beauty. A really luscious film like this needed Ева Рас (Eva Ras). She is a bit like Jitka Zelenohorská’s character in Closely Watched Trains…mischievous, bewitching… But there is one great difference between Ras and Zelenohorska: Ras is a blond.

Though our film is in black and white, it is clear that Ras’ silky hair is rather fair (a detail which would not have escaped Hitchcock). It must be said, however, that Makavejev did not give in to the easy femme fatale portrayal when it came to filming Ras. Izabela (Ras) is a complex individual. The film tells us that she is Hungarian. She is different…other. She needs sex. She is passionate.

All the same, her portrayal by Ras is poetic and tender. Really, what we are seeing here is a tentative feminism expressed by Makavejev which would become a thundering symphony of women’s liberation in Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

And it is good. It is good for men to see these types of films. We men idolize and reify women in the West, but we don’t often enough stop to really observe the trials of womankind.

In the best spirit of socialism, this film has something for everyone…men, women…ok, maybe not children.

Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator is really an intense film. If you have seen (and made it through) Stan Brakhage’s The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (a film I, incidentally, once made the mistake of showing at a party), then you’ll be alright. For those faint of heart (I generally fall into that category), there are a couple of rough moments in this film (in the context of criminology).

In all, I am very proud and happy to have seen my first Serbian movie. As a resident of San Antonio (and fan of the San Antonio Spurs), I feel it gives me a better glimpse into the life of one of my favorite basketball players Бобан Марјановић (Boban Marjanović). I highly recommend this film…and Go Spurs Go 🙂

There are few things more difficult. More difficult. Than divining the truth as it is happening.

Happening? The truth happens. Or is.

We don’t know. Prague Spring. PRAHA.

Did you know that Ceaușescu condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia? Really.

Fascinating. We hear that name and we think bad guy. Maybe. We do.

Youthful errors. I can only affirm the brilliance of this film in absence of French comprehension.

In absence of Italian comprehension.

In absence of Czech comprehension.

In absence of Marxist comprehension.

You will notice the monolithic structures as a Western capitalist on the outside looking in.

On the inside perhaps some saw provisions for all.

Heat in winter. Food on the table. Poverty squelched or shared.

Socialism.

It explains why this film is barely in print. You must remember how radical the Dziga-Vertov Group was.

You either find it brave or you find it disgusting…like the Aden Arabie cell from La Chinoise. Juliet Berto chanting

Revisionist!

Revisionist!

Revisionist!

…as if brainwashed.

Skoda. Now owned by Volkswagen. How ironic?

Skoda. Founded by two Vaclavs.

There is a 20-year gap in Skoda’s history on Wikipedia. Škoda Auto. My guess is we can thank Volkswagen for “cleaning up” the history a bit. They cleaned a little too well. Now there’s a hole. And it’s noticeable.

Two shirtless fat men. Two Vaclavs? I have no idea. But these gents make it all worthwhile…shoveling dirt in front of a post office. One of the two so impressively hirsute (back and front) as to have a pseudo-shirt.

Socialism was a belief in something. The U.S. lost the Vietnam war. Little debating that. And now Vietnam is socialist (at least in name). Did the globe stop spinning? Of course not.

These are not brave details. I have been much more bold before.

Yet reason.

She was so beautiful as to make us cry.

We stood no chance.

She never smiled.

Not like the first one..

To understand Marx. To understand European socialism. To understand Russia riddle enigma matryoshka. Through the lens of Dostoyevsky. Karamazov. Religion. Culture. Vast expanses of land…

I may be at the end of the world. It may be necessary for me to take a step back.

Mmmm…to be intoxicated by something so bizarre, so rare, so taboo, and so unknowable…for now.

It is why Alex Jones’ films fail. They are artless. Had he channeled Godard there would have been no stopping his cinema.

But the spectacle is where James Clapper, much to his own chagrin, realizes that “deceit deceives itself” (to quote Debord).

TPTB have never grasped the coded messages in Shostakovich. Stylometry can only undermine a Snowden email. If that.

Like Dylan I have no big answers.

You will be punished for thinking. That.

Thought crime.

Guillotine.

Guileless in Seattle.

We are getting closer to the truth. Dangerously close.

You will know knowledge hack. Coined term. Here. Like 4’33” Cage.

Life hack. Kryptos.

Somebody forgot to take their medicine.

We can joke.

Did Ezra Pound’s punishment befit his crime? His crime? [DHS] [[VHS]]

Kino Pravda.

Should keep several good intelligence analysts busy for a week.

Several petaflops of drivel occupied.

To not be fucked with.

Moloch in Bohemia.

Practically free.

Just keep the angles which predate Orson Welles. Dziga. Vertov.

The Académie française will never accept. Their loss.

Propaganda will always show blood dripping from fangs…even if blood is dripping from fangs.

You ask who died. And who didn’t. Warren Buffett. Charity golf and tennis tournament. Offutt AFB. Morning of 9/11. Nerve center of American nuclear deterrent. We know one WTC CEO who didn’t die because she was invited. Who else was on that list???

I hear the whispers of a young, balding man. Torn in half by war. Risking it all. To edit a film about the Palestinians. And the film lab is bombed. A scare tactic. How dare you support those Muselmanns? Muselmensch.

Disproportionate riposte. Flip script. ABC

sWords: 265

1:27 AM

Louis Le Prince – Wikipedi…

Add Media.

Two sentences. I overlooked a period.

Lumumba and Rousseau.

Freud is the head and Marx is the sex. Theory and practice.

Give him enough rope. …

Derrida sideways.

It is the brilliance of the little boy–the touching presence of the crusty old beggar.

In school we learned about Nietzsche, but no one ever told me about Jack Nitzsche.

She keeps dozing off. Tap tap. Perks up. Dozes. Again prodded. But when she slumps left (her left)…a caress. It works the same. She opens her eyes. More painful-eyes studying. Some sleep with one eye open. I read until only one eye cooperates. And then no eyes. Off to processing sleep.

Mao was still prominent. But this is where the great art of montage was first born…continued and epitomized in Histoire(s) du cinema. 3.8/5. My ass. Rotten tomatoes…Léolo.

I am at a loss for words. But through your peripheral vision you can tell that I didn’t stop writing after that statement. No, in fact…you can tell that I conversely became quite verbose. So therefore the figure of speech was misleading. Perhaps that is why Godard came to distrust language. Who is Jean-Luc Godard?

And what does it matter? This rhetorical device propels my analysis, yet the reader is more or less free to comment at the end of the article. More or less. Derrida. Deconstruct at the weakest link in the logical chain. Find where the text contradicts itself. It is like a pivot chord in a musical modulation. Napoleon would charge with all of his forces. More or less.

The reason I express myself in this way is because, for me, film criticism is akin to ekphrasis. Therefore, poetry. As much as we want to be historians or scholars or social scientists, we must accept that we are really just poets. Just.

Finally a title which meshes with my theme. It’s not my theme, yet I have chosen it. Vertigo. It rejects diacritical marks…just as Shirley cards rejected the negro. Godard realized this in Africa. Filming. The film had been optimized for white actors.

With all of these tangents it is a wonder that anyone makes it to the end of these ekphrastic rants. Rambling rants. Off-topic. Hot topic. Napalm. Curtis LeMay. Stone Age.

It occurs to me that I could very well play the reactionary, yet conscience intercedes. Pax Americana. No. I cannot justify it. I will leave it to the Navy…”a global force for good.”

It was wise that they finally discarded such a ridiculous motto. Perhaps no one was buying it. Sell war. Buy war.

It is easy to get caught up in all of the James Bond gadgetry and thereby forget Vietnam.. Forget Iraq. Forget Afghanistan. Libya. Syria.

For me there is no difference between the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute. Pepsi and Coke. Perhaps one is a little worse than the other. They fundamentally define one another. A dialectic. Hegel. Kant. Fichte.

Jean-Luc Godard dropped out of the University of Paris. It is credited as his alma mater on Wikipedia. The Sorbonne.

This was before Hanne Karin Bayer became Anna Karina: Godard’s first wife and leading lady. But now we have Marina Vlady. Made in Russia.

I get a text. Putin missing. I had seen. DEBKAfile. Approximately one million spots lower than my website on Alexa.

No, they will never give up on trying to impose order on the chaos of Finnegans Wake. It is sheer egotism. And I am the antithesis: no plot, no characters.

And what of the synthesis? Yes, you must reread and rewatch to uncover the nuances. Godard’s oeuvre is one long statement. Miss a film and you’ve missed a chapter of his life–a phrase in his grand statement. Certainly. Certainly. Maybe.

“The comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus.” From the basement Bob Dylan nailed it: modern life as comic book. Obverse and reverse. Godard and Dylan.

All I have is cat food. You have seven minutes left. Three left.

Anny Duperey looks perfect…perfectly empty…staring off into space…smoking the ubiquitous cigarette. The Shirley card loves her. She shines. She is radiance. Might she be the next! big! thing?

It is with a heavy heart…that I relate that no, indeed, rather, Juliet Berto…for some time.

Juliet Berto won’t be reading this in any traditional manner. She passed away in 1990 at the age of 42.

In 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle, she made her screen debut.

Tristesse. Sadness. Yes, Godard was right. It is undeniable. Things have not gone well for capitalism. He says neo-capitalism, but I say neoconservatism. It is not quite antithesis. It is already synthesis. Beginning, middle, end. [Not necessarily in that order…]